DJI Mavic Drone

[Chase Worthington]

That's pretty awesome. Can't wait to see what people think about the goggles. What editing software do you use for you videos?

 

[Ronnie]

Still using movie maker 8 free from Microsoft. I have better software on a mac book but haven't made time to learn to use it yet.

 

[Ronnie]

I've been looking for a used PWC to rebuild but have not found"the one" I want so I bought this instead. I won't say that I went to the dark side but I am looking forward to doing my own comparisons between this, the Mavic and phantom 4.

 

[Chase Worthington]

Nice product but DJI is the best in the business. This is GoPro's first drone whereas DJI has made a couple already. Plus, you can't really beat the size of the Mavic Pro. It literally goes everywhere with me because it is so small.

 

[Volffas]

Nice Ronnie, I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say. The most tempting part of the Karma for me is the removable gimble.

 

[spatty99]

Definitely love the Mavic. This is only my second attempt (so no judging the lack of cinematic quality) with autonomous tracking, and I'm thoroughly impressed. Getting better using it, and looking forward to trying it with a boarder in the water.

 

[Ronnie]

@spatty99 , was that all autonomous? What mode track or follow? I haven't had a chance to test mine at speed yet.

I tried the karma out today. I'm impressed by how it handled the constant wind but disappointed with the battery life (maybe 13 mins. max.) and lack of a track or follow mode.
My initial impression is that the Karma is fine for getting footage of a stationary object but the jury is out on how it will do with a moving object.

 

[spatty99]

That was active track, where it follows the visual of an object (person, car, bike, etc). It can follow along (I think up to nearly 30mph in perfect conditions) from behind, the sides, front, or just sit in the sky and just have the camera following. Really cool. It can also track the gps signal of your remote, but that has more lag.

Another perspective...

 

[Ronnie]

I couldn't get my mavic to do what I wanted this weekend. Follow me and track me modes worked sporadically and I kept forgetting to focus on the center of the screen so a lot of my footage came out blurry like the attached pic. If this doesn't get better for me soon I'm probably going to sell my Mavic and all the accessories I have for it. At this point I think I could have gotten better footage with my Phantom 4. However, I'm holding on to the Mavic at least until I get to use it with the recently released DJI Goggles.

 

[biffdotorg]

@aceofbase , I didn't see the float pic you posted, just a blank post. I did see the pic @Benny Sibbitt posted of the four floats though and suspect it is the same as yours. I like the float idea but couldn't bring myself to spend $40 on it at the time. I may order them this weekend as a preventative solution against water damage. I already have "getter back" floats meant to recover fishing rods that fall over pbaord and sink (self inflating balloon) but if the mavic hits the water with this its toast. The floats may keep it from getting wet, depends on if it lands or crashes as well as water conditions.

I too have lost a phantom to the water, it had pool noodle floats on it so I could get it back but the water wasn't that deep and it was only in it for a minute or so. I got replacement coverage from dji for the mavic but I have heard some bad things about how dji handles some claims (you may not get back the same mavic, it may be a refurbed unit not a new one, so it may not perform as well as expected and the return process can take a few weeks).

Here is a pic of my mavic currently, just got the extended gear and prop guards (doubt I will fly it like this much as its is quickly getting bigger and less portable). Also here is a link to the video of my phantom 2 crashing into the water. My pride was more hurt than anything. Up my wallet ultimately hurt to the tune of $1,000 when I pic hashed a phantom 3 to replace it.

View attachment 52478

Looking forward to seeing some boating videos from you guys.

Ronnie, I can't believe you took the time to calibrate your drone while sitting on the actual landing. Obviously it was not a very busy landing, so it was no big deal. And who am I to judge.

But if you pulled that here in Minnesota, I think someone may have pulled a gun on you. Fisherman especially get pretty pissed when someone is not ready to launch or recover their boat by the time their trailer hits the water.

Love the video clips though, keep them coming.

 

[Mystic1906]

How hard is it to recover the Mavic while underway? My cousin just bought one and he has questions about flying it off of the boat. He says the older versions were easier to catch than this one. He had obstacle avoidance on and it wouldn't get close enough to him.

 

[Ronnie]

It is a pain to launch and hand recover the Mavic under way unless you disable the forward obstacle avoidance and the the sensors on the bottom first. If I launch from the bow with the obstacle avoidance on the heli automaticly moves back on take of as it senses the front wall of the bow. On recovery unless the sensors are off the heli moves up when it senses my hand under it. My biggest issue is remembering to hit the focus button or screen. Ironically older phantom 4 didn't have any of this issue.

 

[captainhook]

Thanks for those screenshots. There is a lot of bickering back and forth online about the manual focus functions versus the Phantom line. Some people have issues like the picture you posted, while others say it is perfectly fine. I think you've proven that it is indeed an issue.

DJI is announcing the Spark this very moment. I wonder if that has the same issue. It also might be too small to fly in the wind conditions I often encounter when boating.

Edit-2 axis gimbal, $699 (if you want a real controller), and wifi connectivity. Pass.

 

[Benny Sibbitt]

I have the mavic and love the size....
for the follow me modes = it doesn't work well with any of the drones if you are to close
For the focusing, the closer you are, the more out of focus you will be, so don't forget to tap screen for close ups
You also need to tap the screen anytime you change the distance between the drone and the subject you are shooting.

For boat landing with the obstacle avoidance sensors on you have to grab the mavic quick and tight

 

[Ronnie]

@Benny Sibbitt

I have the mavic and love the size....
I like the size too but I don't think that will be enough for me, I expected more.

for the follow me modes = it doesn't work well with any of the drones if you are to close
I tried it at various distances from the remote but it still kept losing track of the boat even when the boat was going less than 20 mph

For the focusing, the closer you are, the more out of focus you will be, so don't forget to tap screen for close ups
You also need to tap the screen anytime you change the distance between the drone and the subject you are shooting.
I didn't have to do this on my phantom 2 or phantom 3 and don't have to on my phantom 4.

For boat landing with the obstacle avoidance sensors on you have to grab the mavic quick and tight
I did that and also figured out that I can grab it from the tail to avoid triggering the bottom sensors.

The thing is, I'm of the opinion that this should just work, as well if not better than the Phantoms that came before it but it doesn't.
I'm still on the fence about the Mavic but admit that I need to use it more before I make a keep or sell decision on it. In the meantime, I may take a closer look at the air dog and or spark.
I know, I'm a drone addict.

 

[Ronnie]

Looks like I will be selling my Mavic system and possibly fav goggles soon. Took it out again yesterday and over 80% of the footage I got is crap / blurry. My wife likes it because it is cute and small compared to a phantom but I can't live with the lack of auto focus. The copter itself flies great, I had it up to 40 mph yesterday while manually tracking the boat and will post some footage later.

 

[captainhook]

Interesting that yours is blurry. I read both opinions online, some say it is and some say it isn't. I just bought one the other day and mine showed "AF" in the center around a green box. I assumed that meant auto focus. Is yours not doing that? I never tapped the screen or attempted to focus at all and mine was nice and sharp, but I only flew it once for a couple of minutes because it kept saying "high winds."

I am really tempted to take mine on the boat tomorrow and part of the reason I bought it, but I am pretty nervous about landing it on a moving boat. I am decently experienced as this is not my first (or second, or third...) drone but it still seems difficult. It was easy to catch my Phantoms but not so easy on the Mavic for a few reasons.

 

[captainhook]

Just found some info online that may help you. Check this out:

https://forum.dji.com/thread-96290-1-1.html

I am going to fly mine again today and pay more attention to focus.

 

[captainhook]

So I am noticing quite a difference in the Mavic versus the Phantom 3s I used to have. The camera seems to auto focus but not completely unless you tap the screen. It's hard to explain. It does require a lot more effort to get a good shot though, that's for sure. The Phantom is basically just hit record and it does all the work for you. Not so with the Mavic.

I'll cut some of the video I took today down a bit and post it later to see if yours is worse than mine. Though this is more effort, I think it is totally manageable. I haven tried out any of the fancy features yet. Very little wind today so I was able to hand catch it pretty easily. I launched off of the sun pad (first time I ever took it out and the wife and kids are hooked on the extra seating!).

 

[captainhook]

Here is a quick clip I shot yesterday. I didn't do any focusing and the distance changes. I shot this in 2.7K but it would only upload in 1080P from my iPad.